I have seen it all. I have seen her crumble like a piece of paper. I have seen her eyes soaked in tears. I have seen her floating away like a paper bag and land in the world of her dreams.

Sometimes at nights she rolls away from her bed and reaches out to the window. She noiselessly lifts the glass pane and feels the cold breeze against her face.

In the silence of the night she watches the huge black canvas of the sky. She stares at the moon and the stars with a searching eye.

They say the spirits of our loved ones take the shape of stars and watch us from the world beyond. So, she scans the night sky hoping to find the ‘star’ who was lifted from her life and got lodged in the heavens.

When she was a kid, she wanted to be tall and beautiful. Now she has realized one can’t have everything. She has regrets. I don’t want her to have regrets. I want to keep loving her the way I have since she first stepped into my life. I wish to tell her she is beautiful at heart. I wish to urge her to live the way she wants to.

Everyone sees her as the girl who loves her friends, who loves posing for pictures and who, amidst all the odds can still put up a smile.

But I have seen her in her lows; when she feels the world is zeroing down on her. In such moments, she wants to escape the clutches of the world. But she fights back every time. She walks up to me. She wipes her tears. Her cheeks exhale determination and a strange glow lightens up her eyes. She puts on her headphones and dances like no one is watching until the moment takes over her and she loses herself in ecstasy.

I know someday she will leave this room. I, her mirror, will stare at an empty room instead.

But I will remember her. Not as the girl who always smiled and loved her friends. But as the girl who never gave up, who always fought back and as the girl who lost herself in her graceful moves and danced away her pain.